The New York City draft riots (July 13–16, 1863), known at the time as Draft Week,[3] were violent disturbances in New York City that were the culmination of working-class discontent with new laws passed by Congress that year to draft men to fight in the ongoing American Civil War. The riots remain the largest civil and racial insurrection in American history, aside from the Civil War itself.[4]

U.S. President Abraham Lincoln diverted several regiments of militia and volunteer troops from following up after the Battle of Gettysburg to control the city. The rioters were overwhelmingly working-class men, resenting particularly that wealthier men, who could afford to pay a $300 (equivalent to $5,775 in 2015) commutation fee to hire a substitute, were spared from the draft.[5]

Initially intended to express anger at the draft, the protests turned into a race riot, with white rioters, predominantly Irish immigrants,[4] attacking blacks throughout the city. The official death toll was listed at either 119 or 120 individuals. Conditions in the city were such that Major General John E. Wool, commander of the Department of the East, said on July 16 that "Martial law ought to be proclaimed, but I have not a sufficient force to enforce it."[6]

The military did not reach the city until after the first day of rioting, by which time the mobs, primarily ethnic Irish, had already ransacked or destroyed numerous public buildings, two Protestant churches, the homes of various abolitionists or sympathizers, many black homes, and the Colored Orphan Asylum at 44th Street and Fifth Avenue, which was burned to the ground.[7]

The demographics of the city changed as a result of the riot. So many blacks left Manhattan permanently (many moving to Brooklyn), that by 1865 their population fell below 10,000, the number in 1820.

New York's economy was tied to the South; by 1822 nearly half of its exports were cotton shipments.[8] In addition, upstate textile mills processed cotton in manufacturing. New York had such strong business connections to the South that on January 7, 1861, Mayor Fernando Wood, a Democrat, called on the city's Board of Aldermen to "declare the city's independence from Albany and from Washington"; he said it "would have the whole and united support of the Southern States."[9] When the Union entered the war, New York City had many sympathizers with the South.[10]

The city was also a continuing destination of immigrants. Since the 1840s, most were from Ireland and Germany. In 1860, nearly 25 percent of the New York City population was German-born, and many did not yet speak English. During the 1840s and 1850s, journalists had published sensational accounts, directed at the working class, dramatizing the "evils" of interracial socializing, relationships, and marriages. Reformers joined the effort.[7] Newspapers carried derogatory portrayals of blacks and ridiculed "black aspirations for equal rights in voting, education, and employment." Pseudo-scientific lectures on phrenology were popular, although countered by doctors.[10] At the time, some areas of the city, such as Lower Manhattan, had mixed populations of residents.

The Democratic PartyTammany Hall political machine had been working to enroll immigrants as U.S. citizens so they could vote in local elections, and had strongly recruited Irish, most of whom already spoke English. In March 1863, with the war continuing, Congress passed the Enrollment Act to establish a draft for the first time, as more troops were needed. In New York City and other locations, new citizens learned they were expected to register for the draft to fight for their new country. Black men were excluded from the draft as they were largely not considered citizens, and wealthier white men could pay for substitutes. Free blacks and immigrants competed for low-wage jobs in the city.[7]

New York political offices, including the mayor, were held by Democrats, but the election of Abraham Lincoln as president had demonstrated the rise in Republican political power nationally. The Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863 alarmed much of the working class in New York, who feared that freed slaves would migrate to the city and add further competition to the labor market. There had already been tensions between black and white workers since the 1850s, particularly at the docks. In March 1863, white longshoremen had refused to work with blacks and rioted, attacking 200 black men. In this area of the city, there were a variety of interracial venues of brothels and bars, and neighborhoods were mixed in terms of residents. Men competed as hacks (carriage drivers), craftsmen, and in other jobs.[7]

There were reports of rioting in Buffalo, New York, and certain other cities, but the first drawing of draft numbers — on July 11, 1863 — occurred peaceably in New York City. The second drawing was held on Monday, July 13, 1863, ten days after the Union victory at Gettysburg in southern Pennsylvania. At 10 a.m., a furious crowd of around 500, led by the volunteer firemen of Engine Company 33 (known as the "Black Joke"), attacked the assistant Ninth District provost marshal's office, at Third Avenue and 47th Street, where the draft was taking place.[11] The crowd threw large paving stones through windows, burst through the doors, and set the building ablaze.[12] When the fire department responded, rioters broke up their vehicles. Others killed horses that were pulling streetcars and smashed the cars. To prevent other parts of the city being notified of the riot, they cut telegraph lines.[11] Many of the rioters were Irish laborers who feared having to compete with emancipated blacks for jobs.[4]

Since the New York State Militia had been sent to assist Union troops in Pennsylvania, the New York City Police Department was the only force to try to suppress the riots.[12] The police superintendent, John A. Kennedy, arrived at the site on Monday to check on the situation. Although not in uniform, people in the mob recognized him and attacked him. Kennedy was left nearly unconscious, his face bruised and cut, his eye injured, his lips swollen, and his hand cut with a knife. He had been beaten to a mass of bruises and blood all over his body.[3]

Police drew their clubs and revolvers, and charged the crowd, but were overpowered.[13] The police forces were badly outnumbered and unable to quell the riots, but they kept the rioting out of Lower Manhattan below Union Square.[3] Immigrants and others in the "Bloody Sixth" Ward, around the seaport and Five Points area, refrained from involvement in the rioting.[14]

The Bull's Head hotel on 44th Street, which refused to provide alcohol to the mob, was burned. The mayor's residence on Fifth Avenue, the Eighth and Fifth District police stations, and other buildings were attacked and set on fire. Other targets included the office of the New York Times. The mob was turned back at the Times office by staff manning Gatling guns, including Times founder Henry Jarvis Raymond.[15] Fire engine companies responded, but some firefighters were sympathetic to the rioters, as they had also been drafted on Saturday.[13] Later in the afternoon, authorities shot and killed a man as a crowd attacked the Armory at Second Avenue and 21st Street. The mob broke all the windows with paving stones ripped from the street.[11]

Rioters turned against black people as their scapegoats and the primary target of their anger. Many immigrants and other poor people viewed free black men as competition for scarce jobs, and worried about more slaves being emancipated and coming to New York for work.[7] The mob beat, tortured or killed numerous black people, including one man who was attacked by a crowd of 400 with clubs and paving stones, then lynched, hanged from a tree and set alight.[11]

Attack on the Tribune building

The Colored Orphan Asylum at 143rd Street and Fifth Avenue, a "symbol of white charity to blacks and of black upward mobility"[7] that then provided shelter for 233 children, was attacked by a mob at around 4 p.m. A mob of several thousand, including many women and children, looted the building of its food and supplies. However, the police were able to secure the orphanage for enough time to allow the orphans to escape before the building burned down.[16] Throughout the areas of rioting, mobs attacked and killed at least 120 black people, and destroyed their known homes and businesses, such as James McCune Smith's pharmacy at 93 West Broadway, believed to be the first owned by a black man in the United States.[7]

Near the midtown docks, tensions brewing since the mid-1850s boiled over. As recently as March 1863, white employers had hired blacks, with whom Irish men refused to work, as longshoremen. An Irish mob attacked two hundred blacks who were working on the docks, while other rioters went into the streets in search of "all the negro porters, cartmen and laborers ..." to attempt to remove all evidence of a black and interracial social life from the area near the docks. White dockworkers attacked and destroyed brothels, dance halls, boarding houses, and tenements that catered to blacks. Mobs stripped the clothing off the white owners of these businesses.[7]

Heavy rain fell on Monday night, helping to abate the fires and sending rioters home, but the crowd returned the next day. Rioters burned down the home of Abby Gibbons, a prison reformer and the daughter of abolitionist Isaac Hopper. They also attacked white "amalgamationists", such as Ann Derrickson and Ann Martin, two white women who were married to black men, and Mary Burke, a white prostitute who catered to black men. The women escaped personal physical harm.[7][17]

The situation improved on Wednesday, when assistant provost-marshal-general Robert Nugent received word from his superior officer, Colonel James Barnet Fry, to postpone the draft. As this news appeared in newspapers, some rioters stayed home. But some of the militias began to return and used harsh measures against the remaining mobs.[13]

A final confrontation occurred on Thursday evening near Gramercy Park. According to Adrian Cook's analysis in Armies of the Streets (1974), twelve people died on the last day of the riots in skirmishes between rioters, the police, and the Army, including one African American, two soldiers, a bystander, and two women.[citation needed]

The New York Times reported on Thursday that Plug Uglies and Blood Tubs gang members from Baltimore, as well as "Scuykill Rangers [sic] and other rowdies of Philadelphia," had come to New York during the unrest to participate in the riots alongside the Dead Rabbits and "Mackerelvillers". The Times editorialized that "the scoundrels cannot afford to miss this golden opportunity of indulging their brutal natures, and at the same time serving their colleagues the Copperheads and secesh [secessionist] sympathizers."[18]

The exact death toll during the New York Draft Riots is unknown, but according to historian James M. McPherson (2001), at least 120 people were killed. In all, eleven black men were lynched over five days. The riots forced hundreds of blacks to flee the city.[19] Violence by longshoremen against black men was especially fierce in the docks area.[7]

The most reliable estimates indicate at least 2,000 people were injured. Herbert Asbury, the author of the 1928 book Gangs of New York, upon which the 2002 film was based, puts the figure much higher, at 2,000 killed and 8,000 wounded,[20] but this figure is not widely accepted.[21] Total property damage was about $1–5 million ($19.3 million – $96.3 million, adjusted for inflation).[20][22] The city treasury later indemnified one-quarter of the amount.

The historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote that the riots were "equivalent to a Confederate victory".[22] Fifty buildings, including two Protestant churches and the Colored Orphan Asylum, were burned to the ground. During the riots, landlords, fearing that the mob would destroy their buildings, had driven blacks from their residences. As a result of the violence against blacks, hundreds left New York, including James McCune Smith, moving to Williamsburg, Brooklyn (still a separate city until 1898) and New Jersey.[7]

The white elite in New York organized to provide relief to black riot victims, helping them find new work and homes. The Union League Club and the Committee of Merchants for the Relief of Colored People provided nearly $40,000 to 2,500 victims of the riots. By 1865 the black population had dropped to under 10,000, the lowest since 1820. The white working-class riots had changed the demographics of the city, and whites exerted their control in the workplace; they became "unequivocally divided" from blacks.[7]

Colored Orphan Asylum was burned

On August 19, the government resumed the draft in New York. It was completed within 10 days without further incident. Fewer men were drafted than had been feared by the working class: of the 750,000 selected nationwide for conscription, only about 45,000 went into service.[23]

While the rioting mainly involved the working class, middle and upper-class New Yorkers had split sentiments on the draft and use of federal power or martial law to enforce it. Many wealthy Democratic businessmen sought to have the draft declared unconstitutional. Tammany Democrats did not seek to have the draft declared unconstitutional, but helped pay the commutation fees for those who were drafted.[24] In December 1863, the Union League Club recruited over 2000 black soldiers, outfitted and trained them, honoring and sending men off with a parade through the city to the Hudson River docks in March 1864. A crowd of 100,000 watched the procession, which was led by police and members of the Union League Club.[7][25][26]

New York City's support for the Union cause continued, however grudgingly, and gradually Southern sympathies declined in the city. New York banks eventually financed the Civil War, and the state's industries were more productive than those of the entire Confederacy. By the end of the war, more than 450,000 soldiers, sailors, and militia had enlisted from New York State, which was the most populous state at the time. A total of 46,000 military men from New York State died during the war, more from disease than wounds.[9]

Defenses of New York City: BrevetBrigadier GeneralHarvey Brown,[31] Brown was in overall command of the military fortresses in New York city at the time and volunteered his services to General Wool. Wool instructed Brown to serve under the command of militia General Sandford to which Brown initially refused but eventually offered to serve in whatever capacity needed.[29] Brig. General Edward R. S. Canby[32]

Recalled back to New York; on the way, one Private drowned. On July 16, 1863 during a skirmish with rioters, the regimental casualties were one Private received a buckshot in the back of the hand and two Privates had their coats cut by bullets[33]

Original regiment mustered out on June 2, 1862. Colonel O'Brien was in the process of recruiting at the time of the draft riots. The regiment was never brought back to strength and enlisted members were transferred to 17th Veteran Infantry.